Editing

Editing is done in the Timeline. Add a clip by dragging it from the project tree or the Clip Monitor. Once a clip is dropped on a track, it can be moved (drag and drop it) to another place on the same track or onto another track.

Seeking through your project

The timeline cursor shows your current position in the project. The positions of the cursors on the timeline ruler and project monitor are always in sync. Position can be moved in following ways:

Keyboard shortcut: right / left arrows for one frame, Shift+ right / left for 1 second

Clicking/dragging in the Timeline ruler or in an empty area of the timeline.

Cutting a clip

To cut a clip, the easiest way is to place the timeline cursor where you want to cut the clip, then select the clip (left click in it) and use the menu Timeline -> Current Clip -> Cut Clip (default shortcut: Shift + R).

Resizing a clip

A clip can be resized from its start or end by dragging its left or right edge. If you want a more precise resize, you can place the timeline cursor wherever you want the resize to end and use the menu TimelineResize Item Start (default shortcut: 1) or TimelineResize Item End (default shortcut: 2)

To even more precisely control the length of a clip, double click it in the timeline and adjust its duration using the Clip duration dialog. You can have frame-level accuracy with this method.

You can also resize a clip by cutting it with the Razor Tool and then deleting the bit you do not want.

Removing Space Between Clips

Right click in the space between the clips and choose Remove Space. Be aware however that if you have clips on multiple tracks in the timeline and they are not grouped, then removing space may disturb the alignment of the clips between the different tracks — the space is only removed from the timeline where you clicked. Under this situation it may be safer to use the Spacer Tool.

Bottom Tool Bar

There is a toolbar under the timeline that controls various aspects of the editor.

The first 6 buttons on this toolbar belong to two groups of three buttons each. These same settings can be found under the Tool menu.

Active buttons are light blue with a box around them.

Edit Mode Group (one of these 3 can be active)

1. Normal Mode

2. Overwrite Mode

3. Insert Mode

Tool Group (one of these 3 can be active)

4. Selection Tool

5. Razor Tool

6. Spacer Tool

Zoom Tools

7. Fit Zoom to Project

8. Zoom project, including (L-to-R); zoom out, zoom level and zoom in

Miscellaneous (These toggle on and off independently)

9. Split Audio and Video Automatically

10. Show Video Thumbnails

11. Show Audio Thumbnails

12. Show marker comments

13. Snap

Normal Mode

In this edit mode you can not drag clips on top of other clips in the same track in the timeline. You can drag them to another track in the timeline but not into the same track at the same time point as an existing clip. Contrast this to overwrite mode.

Overwrite Mode

In this edit mode you can drag a clip onto a track where there is an existing clip and the incoming clip will overwrite that portion of the existing clip (or clips) covered by the incoming clip.

Before

After

In the "After" screenshot above, you can see that the clip which was dragged from the upper track has replaced a portion of the clip on the lower track.

Insert Mode

This is not implemented yet.

Selection Tool

Use this to select clips in the timeline. The cursor becomes a hand when this tool is active.

Razor Tool

Use this to cut clips in the timeline. The cursor becomes a pair of scissors when this tool is active.

Spacer Tool

Use this tool () to temporarily group separate clips and then drag them around the timeline to create or remove space between clips. Very useful. Experiment with this tool to see how it works.

In the above example these clips are not grouped. However, the spacer tool groups them temporarily for you so you can move them all as a group.

Fit Zoom to Project

This will zoom the project out so that it all fits in the timeline window. This is the same function that is triggered by Timeline Menu item, Fit Zoom to Project.

Zoom project

The magnifying glasses zoom in or out on the timeline. The slider adjusts the zoom by large increments. These same settings are controlled by the Timeline menu items, Zoom In and Zoom Out.

Split Audio and Video Automatically

When this is on and you drag a clip to the timeline, the audio in the clip will end up on an audio track and the video on a video track. You can achieve the same result if you select the clip, right click, Split Audio. When this is off and you drag a clip onto the timeline, both the audio and video tracks are combined into one video track.

Show Video Thumbnails

When on, the video clips in the timeline will contain thumbnails as well a filename. Otherwise they just have the clip filename.

Show Audio Thumbnails

When on, the audio clip will have a wave representation of the audio data as well as a filename. Otherwise they just have the clip filename.

Show marker comments

This toggles on and off the display of the comments saved within markers (the text with the gold background in the example below) and within guides (the text with the purple background).

Snap

When this feature is on, dragging the beginning of one clip near to the end of another will result in the end of the first clip snapping into place to be perfectly aligned with the beginning of the second clip. As you move the two ends near to each other, as soon as they get within a certain small distance, they snap together so there is no space and no overlap. Note that this occurs even if the clips are on different tracks in the timeline.

Cutting Footage from multiple aligned tracks - Ripple Delete

This is available on the Timeline menu under All clips->Ripple Delete[1].

Mark In and Out points in the Project Monitor, then choose Timeline->All clips->Ripple Delete (or Ctrl-X). Kdenlive deletes all footage between the In and Out points in unlocked tracks, slides everything else back to fill the gap, and puts the playhead on the In point.